Tag tweed industry | Handwoven Tweed

30 May 20138 July 2020 by admin

IN GOOD HANDS (RTE)

David Shaw Smith revisits six of the businesses and artisans he filmed in the original Hands series to see how they’ve weathered the last 30 years, focusing on this new generation of craft workers.

Throughout the ’70s and ’80s, David Shaw Smith and his wife Sally captured the intricacy and brilliance of Irish craft in the landmark RTE series, HANDS. Now aged 70, and still filming, Shaw Smith, effectively the ‘godfather’ of Irish craft, revisits six of the businesses and artisans he filmed in the original series to see how they’ve weathered the last 30 years, focusing on this new generation of craft workers.

Ardara in Donegal

Today we drove to the village of Ardara in Donegal, which this year won the Irish Times – Ireland’s best village to live in. It’s beautiful, in an amazing setting & has some of the friendlest people you’re ever likely to meet – two thousand people and thirteen pubs.

Ardara is famous for its music festivals & there are plenty of visitors, as but unlike many other places the town doesn’t organise itself around tourists, it’s a thriving community for visitors to enjoy rather than a tourist attraction.

The Grannies were keen to visit Eddie Doherty as they had heard that Sarah Jessica Parker (Sex in the City) buys tweed from him. Eddie is one of the last independent hand loom weavers in Ireland, his tiny shop is a treasure of colourful handwoven tweed & he was busy at his loom in the back of the shop when we arrived.

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15 June 201210 December 2013 by admin

Tweed part of Donegal’s social fabric

ARDARA, Ireland — Eddie Doherty’s hands dart about at a dizzying rate, feeding the warp and the woof into his loom, a clattering device of wood, springs, shuttles and knotted ropes.

The machine looks as if it should be in a museum. And it may well be heading that way, for hand looms are being overtaken by weaving factories even here in Ardara, the cradle of the tweed industry in Ireland.

“I’m a dying breed,” Doherty, 73, admits.

But for the moment he, and a few others here in this western Donegal village (population: 600) will continue the centuries-old hand-weaving tradition, making fabric for the likes of Armani, Burberry and Ralph Lauren.

“Yes, there are synthetic ‘tweeds,'” says Doherty, “but once you’ve had hand-woven tweed you wouldn’t have anything else.”

Handwoven Tweeds in Cornwall

Little White Alice is a unique private complex offering 5 Star Gold luxury but sustainable holidays in beautifully furnished green cottages. Eddie provided the curtains, throws and cushion covers for The Little White Alice .